Two great WiFi apps from he same company, for free.

[Gary]

http://www.xirrus.com/library/wifitools.php

Xirrus offer two versions, one a sidebar gadget for vista or you can use the yahoo widget engine for it on XP, the other app is Xirrus wifi Inspector which is a standalone app, they show wifi hotspots, routers etc that are around you, what encryption they use, along with SSID and Channel number etc so you can tune your WiFi to get less interference (you need to be about 4 channels away) so if you have several networks running on channel 6 go for channel 11 as that channel has less potential overlap issues than say channel 10 would, the GUI is clean and the sidebar gadget looks great as well, and has changeable skins and with a click of your mouse it shows information on your own wifi network and its health as well as those around you. The WiFi inspector is more powerful, and a better bet if you do not like widgets/gadgets running on Vista's sidebar of if you do not use the yahoo widget engine in XP, the widget is the only available version for OS X but runs well on that platform from the reviews I have seen.

  Both apps help your trouble shoot wifi issues and even throughput ones and are compatible with draft N routers as well so you can even see them in sweeps of your neighbourhood. It's great piece of software and above all its free  and depending on what you want, the gadget or Standalone Inspector its a useful tool. I Been playing with it for a few days, the widget has a GUI bug that shows an orange dot for some people, but if you un-doc it and re-doc it that stops that issue, I imagine that will be sorted in the next update of the gadget, personally I prefer the standalone version. It has has helped fine tune my wifi network to get rid of as much interference from neighbouring networks as much as I can, its also great for looking for rogue APs if you are out and about with a laptop I would imagine 

  Xirrus develop and deploy WiFi arrays for business, hospitals and conference centres etc and a respected and trusted company, so the applications are safe.

[Rik]

Interesting, thanks Gary.

[Gary]

  Rik